18:34.0S

172:10.0W

There really are no bad winds; there are just winds from bad directions.  It is just that for the last 18 hours the winds have been from a bad direction; exactly where we want to go.  This means we can’t go there, or at least not directly anyway.  Having had to pass Raratonga and Nieu for this reason, the crew is getting impatient.  Yesterday we did the unthinkable and put on the motor and have been motoring into the wind for the past 18 hours.  At first, just noisy and not fun when the winds were calm; now that it is blowing 20 knots, it is also quite bumpy.  We are 20 miles from another reef type obstruction (I say reef type because it is called a seamount on the chart and don’t know what it really is, but will go around it anyway) and then another 80 miles to Tonga’s coast.  The solution is to have endless amounts of time and to just wait out a few days or week, of so so weather.  Unfortunately we don’t have that kind of schedule. Babelfish still looks very good, very pretty.

We won’t see much, if any, of Thursday, as we are now approaching the dateline.  It is now noon Wednesday, and in 12 hours it will be FRIDAY morning.  In the vernacular; cool.

Babelfish

Ps finished the light, New Zealand travel book by a motorcycle woman from England.  Interesting for what it indirectly suggests you should not visit.